The legend of the Tambora Volcano

On April 5, 1815 - the Tambora volcano, located in Indonesia became active. It began spewing lava with great force, the largest eruption in history. Many people living near the volcano lost their lives. Tambora threw so much dust and aerosols in the atmosphere, the sky darkened and people could not see the sun.

These particles were scattered over the coming months and affected the global climate. The average temperature fell by three degrees, but the effect was temporary. The consequences were – a catastrophic eruption. Let us see what the legend says.

A man visited Tambora and stopped at a random mosque to pray. By very large coincidence, in the same mosque was the king, who is with two dogs . The visitor, without knowing who he was, complained about the fact that inside the sanctuary, there are dogs. Later in the day, the king finds out about this complaint and invited the disgruntled guest to dinner.

The stranger accepts the invitation and the dinner ends when the king graciously says that they actually ate with the same dogs that were in the mosque. Enraged by this, the visitor judged the king and called him a devil. The king immediately ordered the guards to catch the man and execute him. They were to kill him and throw his body into the crater of the volcano. Even while the body was going down, however, the volcano was slowly showing signs of restlessness. After several years of minor eruptions, the volcano showed its fierce nature and destroyed the whole kingdom, with its thousands of inhabitants.

There are claims that the great Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo because of bad weather, which was caused by the eruption of Tambora. He slowed his attack, because their visibility was extremely poor due to the eruption, three months earlier. The day was Sunday, June 18, 1815. The attack was planned for the morning, but only started at noon, because of heavy rain. Napoleon hoped for the rain to stop, to be able to attack with all his might, but the weapon transporters got stuck in the mud.

The delay allowed his opponents to consolidate their forces and at sunset, Napoleon was defeated by the British, Dutch and German troops, under the command of General Wellington. Waterloo is a region in Belgium, and that defeat changed the world political map and put an end to the rule of Napoleon.